


The Space Between Us

by agent85



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Flashbacks, Healing, Non-Linear Narrative, Post 4x22, Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-05 18:09:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11018778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent85/pseuds/agent85
Summary: At the Playground, Jemma tries to free Fitz from his demons.In space, Fitz tries to find a way free them both.Together, they will have to find their way back to each other before they can find their way home.





	The Space Between Us

Sometimes, he'll catch a glimpse of her in the hallway. It'll be the flip of her ponytail as she rounds the corner, or the flash of her pale wrist as she reaches for the food tray. He tells himself he can't know that it's her in the same moment he's sure that it is. It probably shouldn't surprise him that he knows her that well, but maybe it's seeing her at all that's the surprise. He hasn't seen any sign of Coulson, May, Elena, or Mack; Daisy, who has been of special use to the captain, is occasionally marched by him so fast that he never has time to react. So by what luck has he managed to be closest to _her_? Anyone with sense would know to separate them.

That's the conclusion he's come to in his weeks of semi-isolation. The times when he and Jemma were apart were always when things got to their worst. What Ward and Hive did on accident, AIDA ( _it's_ name is AIDA) did on purpose. It must have been the first thing AIDA saw when she— _it_ —scanned his brain, written in big letters across his neocortex: I AM NOTHING WITHOUT HER. The android would have had to look deeper to see that it is both the truth and an oversimplification: he has been many things without her—angry, resentful, misguided, impulsive—but he has never been strong. He is not strong now.

If he was strong, he would have the courage to seek after her. She has, after all, made it clear where she stands. He's only come this far out of his own guilt because of her insistence that he is not to blame—in seeking to understand why she sees it that way, he has started to see it himself.

He's in the cafeteria one day, trying to shovel unknown mush down his throat, when he contemplates the way that her words have managed to chip away at his guilt. He suddenly realizes that AIDA had not only kept Jemma away from him, but had purposefully lied to him about the nature of the Framework reality, and he's so distracted by the fact that he almost jumps when a delicate hand lands on his shoulder.

He looks the wrong way before he realizes that she's crossing behind him. He turns around as quickly as he dares and there she is, sending him a secret smile before disappearing into the crowd. He stares after her, wanting to gape and knowing that to draw attention is to invite death. She's seen him, and she _wants_  to see him.

She must know that this will only give him courage.

It's the next day when he finds himself looking for her, scrutinizing the reflections in the windows that show only the stars. Has he always been looking for her? Yes, he must have been. Now, though, he's trying to remember each time and place he's seen a piece of her, trying to figure out where his schedule lines up with hers. He wishes he had so much as a piece of scrap paper to help him work out his calculations, but he only has his brain and the hours of mindless tasks that beg to be filled up with thought. Still, it doesn't take him long to figure it out when he finds the courage to try. He simply skips the food lines and goes straight for the cafeteria's exit, hiding in the shadows until he can reach out and grab her hand.

* * *

When Coulson orders them to find a solution, she has to stop herself from reaching for his hand. Intellectually, she knows they can't just go back to the way things were, but it doesn't stop her from wanting it. 

The hearts want what the heart wants, she tells herself.

But isn't the life they had what she's been fighting for? Isn't that why she plugged herself into the Framework in the first place? She clawed her way back from the dead and even made herself get along with Ward just so she could have what they were meant to have. Now, he only sends her forlorn glances and backs away when she comes near. So she doesn't reach for his hand when they go back to what used to be the Zephyr's lab. Instead, she balls her hands into fists and tells herself that she needs an answer to her question.

He, after all, was the one who insisted on finishing conversations.

"Fitz," she says, as kindly as she can, "do you want to kill AIDA?"

He looks down at his feet, rubbing his bad hand.

_"Jemma."_

She takes a deep breath and tries to remember what May said, that there's been enough killing. She doesn't agree with the sentiment, but she understands that they didn't see the ones and zeroes that surrounded everything they did in the Framework. Even Daisy got sucked in, and honestly, Fitz was the only reason Jemma managed to keep her head.

Now, he stands in front of her, hurting.

"Fitz," she says again, "I know you don't want to hurt anybody." She dares to take a step forward, and he doesn't step back. "It's part of who you are. But _AIDA's_ going to hurt people, and I know you don't want that, either."

"You," he whispers. "She's going to hurt _you_."

She draws her brows together, simultaneously worried by his warning and heartened by his tone.

"I told her I love you," he says, covering his face with his hands; "I never should have done it. I should have just . . ."

She takes another step forward. "Pretended?"

"Yeah," he says. "I should have just played along. Maybe I could have . . ."

"What?" she asks. "Masqueraded as her doting boyfriend, indefinitely?

_Fitz_." She lets herself give in this time, closing the space between them and taking his bad hand in both of hers. "I know you think you deserve to be punished," she says, "but I think you deserve to be free of this."

* * *

She looks down at his hand and smiles.

"Fitz," she whispers, and it's so good to hear his name from her lips that he doesn't know what to say. He only swallows and steps back, letting their hands fall between them. She steps forward and reclaims him.

"Have you seen the others?"

He blinks at her a bit before he realizes she asked him a question. "Yeah," he says, "but um, just Daisy. No one else."

Jemma frowns and nods. "Same here." She looks over her shoulder and grimaces. "I've got to go; have you eaten?"

He shakes his head, and her concern deepens. 

"I'll bring you something next time," she promises. "Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," he agrees. Her hand slides out of his, and he remembers another time they did this, when their biggest problem was the time she spent protecting him. He watches her leave and knows a piece of himself goes with her. He's starting to unlock the shackles AIDA gave him, but he'll never be free of Jemma. He doesn't want to be.

He stands there, starting to doubt that what happened between them was real, until it's time for him to go back to work. Besides Jemma, the only blessing that's come with all this is that their captors haven't determined what he's capable of. All he has to do is get into his regular rhythm: take the part, turn it over, attach the smaller piece, close the valve, and return it to the conveyor belt.

Take 

Turn 

Attach 

Close

Return

He does it as mechanically as possible—the foreman's been looking to give out beatings ever since his wife left—and it helps if he chants something that seems appropriate for the occasion.

AIDA

Artificially

Intelligent

Data

Assistant

He's trying to burn it into his brain, to remember the time when he spoke to her— _it's_ —severed head. AIDA never loved him, couldn't love him, and the android knew it from the start. It lied to him so it could play at being a real girl while stringing him along, dangling artificial love like a carrot as it lead him to destruction. He drowns out the voices saying that he's still the one who followed by letting Jemma's words ring louder.

You

Deserve

To be

Free

Of this

* * *

"Free of this?" He pulls his hand out of her grasp and looks back at her with horror. "I killed those people, Jemma. I wanted to do it."

She watches him for a moment, taking a breath before trying a new method of treatment.

"Do you want to do it now?" He stares at her, and she knows he doesn't understand. "If you could kill Gordon and Vijay and Lincoln now, would you?"

He shakes his head so quickly that she hopes his Framework memories will loosen up and fall out of his ears.

"Well," she says, "then it's a good thing that you didn't. Gordon's the only one you actually killed, Fitz, and it was the right thing to do. Killing AIDA is the right thing to do now. We can't contain it."

He holds his bowed head in his hands, and she can only guess which part of the nightmare he's remembering. When he straightens, he looks so stricken that she almost loses her balance.

"She'll try to kill you, Jemma. I don't know how to stop her."

Two weeks ago, she could have put her hand on his chest and slid it up to the back of his neck, letting him rest his head on her shoulder. Now, she's afraid she'll get too close and spook him.

"Fitz," she says, "if you had to choose between protecting AIDA or protecting me, which would you pick?"

He furrows his brow, simultaneously hurt and confused. "That's not—it's not a question."

"Well, then," she says, swallowing, "there should be an easy answer."

"I already said—" He looks down at his feet and stamps his foot on the floor. "I'm not trying to protect her. It's just—in the Framework, she asked me to give her those powers; said that she needed them to protect herself from the people who enslaved her. I didn't know that she was talking about _us_. I assumed that she and I—" He pinches the bridge of his nose and she can feel the shame roll off him as he sucks in a breath. "From the moment I met her, I was always the knight to her queen. I didn't think of ways to defend against her, Jemma. I thought of ways to make her invincible." Both hands fly to his temples, and she knows that his heart is breaking. "And now she is! She has the powers of two dozen Inhumans because _I_ gave them to her, because _I_ loved her enough to give her anything, and I didn't care who I hurt in the process. I can't—now you're going to get hurt, and there's nothing I can do to stop it."

"Well," she says, "then I guess we have three things going for us."

He looks up at her, absolutely bewildered. "What?"

She meets his eyes and lets him see the surety in her heart. "First," she says, "you don't love her anymore, so you won't be subject to her lies and manipulation. Second, you're in love with _me_ , and you know that I will never do anything except help you be the good man you have always been."

She's about to continue when she sees the glint in his eyes, noticing that they're red-rimmed and shining. She'll say it a thousand times if she has to, just like she said it to Ward, Mace, and Daisy. _You're a good man, you're a good man, you're a good man._

"And third?"

She smiles, hearing the break in his voice and knowing it's also a crack in the wall he's put up. "Third," she continues, "I love you despite everything that happened in the Framework, but not like a queen loves a knight." She dares to close the space between them, putting her hands on his folded arms and looking up into his eyes. "And honestly, Fitz, I don't think there's anything that a king and a queen can't accomplish when they're working together. So now that you _do_ have to choose between protecting her or protecting me, I'll be right here to help you be the person that you are."

Her heart swells with so much love for him that she finds she no longer has the power to restrain herself. Her feet lift themselves on her toes without command, and her lips are pressed to his jaw before she can make herself stop. She pulls back from him, taking in his wild eyes. "I know that you're worried about doing harm. Maybe we don't have to focus on killing AIDA, but we do know that she'll try to hurt people. We have to do what's necessary to protect them."

_To protect me_ , she adds silently, and as she watches his Adam's apple bob, she knows her meaning is clear.

"This all started because I was trying to protect you," he says. "I helped create the LMDs and perfect AIDA's programming because I wanted to create _your_ decoy, something that could take your place so no one could take you away from me." He lowers his head and frowns. "And all it did was tear us apart from each other, _again_ , and put you in _even more_ danger."

His words remind her of what Fitz's LMD said to her, and an idea sparks and takes shape. 

"Not necessarily," she says.

* * *

"They hurt you," he says, but she only shakes her head.

"Not necessarily."

She managed to get there before he did, and he soon sees how. She briefly covers the hand he put on her arm before slowly peeling it off. As she rolls up her sleeve, he sees that the red goo trickling down to her wrist comes from a pouch hidden in the bend of her arm. When she retrieves it and hands it to him, he has to cup his hand to contain the drippings. As far as he can tell, it's the same fruit-like sludge that they've been slopping into his food trays. The fact that she was not only able to put it in something like a plastic bag, but also smuggle it out of the cafeteria, is especially impressive.

"How did you—"

She smiles at him. "There are some who consider me a creative thinker. Go ahead, eat. And I hope you don't mind if I . . ." She holds out her red-stained arm with uncertainty. "I mean, we can't let any calories go to waste, can we?"

He shakes his head, carefully opening the small package as we watches the very prim and proper Jemma Simmons awkwardly lick her arm from wrist to bicep. Of all the impossible things he's seen, this has to be the most incredible. He's so enthralled by it that he's almost eaten the whole bag of stolen goods before he realizes it's all she's brought.

"Sorry," he says, holding out the bag for her to take. "I didn't mean to—"

"It's alright," she says. "You didn't get anything yesterday, so its only fair. We can share tomorrow." When he raises an eyebrow, she only shrugs. "It was hard enough smuggling the food out; I was sure I'd lose a hand if I tried to take more than one serving."

"Wouldn't want that," he says.

She gives him a quick smile. "No. Besides, I don't mind skipping a meal if it means I get to see you. How are you managing?"

He looks down, trying to hide the pink in his cheeks. "Same as anybody, I expect. Ready to go home, though."

"Are you?" she asks.

He looks back up at her and doesn't understand what he sees in her eyes. "Yeah," he says. "You know how I feel about space."

She gives him her secret smile, and he wonders what she's trying to hide. "I do. And I think I know how to get back."  

His eyes widen of their own accord. "Y-yeah?"

"Yes, but I'll need your help." She looks around and leans in, and he's not sure how, light years away from all her hygiene products, she still smells intoxicating. "I'm on the cleaning crew, and every week they send me to tidy up what I think is their transporter."

He raises an eyebrow at her. "Transporter? Like on _Star Trek_?"

She nods. "Looks like. But we don't just have to figure out how it works—all the controls are in their language. Do you have any idea how to read it?" He shakes his head, and she gives an understanding sigh. "Well, we'll have to figure it out. I come across scraps of paper every so often, so I'll try and see if I can draw you some sort of diagram."

"Wait," he says, "they turned you into a maid? Don't they know you're more than that?"

She folds her arms and cocks her head at him. "And what do they have you doing?"

He avoids her eyes, feeling sheepish. "I'm on the assembly line."

"Ah," she says. "Looks like they gave me the _skilled_ labor. But it's probably a good thing they haven't recognized our potential. I can only imagine what they have Coulson doing."

"You think they're interested in him?"

She nods, frowning. "I think it's the reason they took us—him and Daisy and Yoyo. I don't even want to think of the horrors they're experiencing right now."

Fitz takes a deep breath, finding he doesn't want to think about it, either. "We'll have to save them," he says. Jemma puts a hand on his shoulder.

"We will. But we need a way out first."

He blinks at her, so overwhelmed by her gentle touch that he feels the need to take her in. It's only then that he notices the dark circles under her eyes.

"Of course," he says. "Are they, uh, how are you holding up?"

She regards him curiously until a sad realization sparks in her eyes. "Oh, I um, I haven't been sleeping well at all since they took you. But I'll manage."

"Since they took _us_ , you mean," he says.

"No," she corrects. She opens her mouth to continue when something catches her eye. He follows her line of sight and sees a man exiting the cafeteria doors. "He's part of my team," she explains. "I'd better get going. See you tomorrow?"

He nods, and she smiles.

"Excellent."

He has no defense against her when she pushes against his shoulder to reach up and kiss him on the cheek, and even after she leaves, he stares after her, feeling the imprint of her lips burning into his skin.

* * *

Jemma's lips burn as they search the Playground, and she does her best to hide her burning cheeks. She'd kiss him again if he'd let her, so firmly and deeply that there would be no mistaking the depth of her feelings. Instead, she sweeps the beam of her flashlight over their lab and tries to remember what it looked like when she left.

"What is it that we're looking for?"

She turns to see if he's curious or annoyed and finds he's a mixture of both. 

"I don't actually think it's here," she explains. "It's too public of a space—someone would be bound to stumble across it. But we might as well rule it out."

"Rule _what_ out?"

She looks him over carefully, trying to find the right way to say it. "After he took you, Radcliffe replaced you with an LMD. You and the rest of the team, except Daisy and me." She turns, looking under the tipped-over lab tables. "Radcliffe wasn't able to switch us out while we were in the field, so he programmed the LMDs to do it here. He made a whole fleet of Daisy LMDs, so there has to be one of me somewhere." She shines her light on Fitz's personal storage closet. "Would you put it in there? If you were trying to keep it from me? I know it wasn't you, but he had your brain."

Fitz frowns. "No. You'd poke your head in there eventually. I don't know where I'd put it, to be honest. I'd probably ask Daisy to hide it for me."

"And that wouldn't have been an option," Jemma concludes. When her hypothesis is correct, and a thorough search of the lab reveals nothing but Carré's stash of Icelandic yogurt, Jemma tries to think of other options. "Do you think Mace hid it? The director has more access to private space than anyone else on the base."

Fitz pales, then nods. "Yeah. Let's, uh, let's check."

This time, she doesn't hesitate to reach for his hand. "No one blames you for that, Fitz. You didn't know what you were doing."

She starts towards Mace's office, all but pulling him along.

"I ordered the strike," he says.

"Yes," she affirms, "and May carried it out. She didn't know what she was doing, either. She only stopped when she found out about the brainwashed children. But she would have killed Mace with her bare hands if she hadn't—what?"

He's stopped cold, stopping her with him. She looks down at their joined hands, then up at him.

"Children?" She can feel him shaking. "She— _we_ —brainwashed children? We talked about it, but I never approved—she told me the schools would be enough."

He lets go of her hands and leans against the wall, scrubbing his face. Jemma feels her forehead crease.

"You didn't know?"

He shakes his head, his eyes closed. "You thought I did?"

He sounds so broken that she simply has to close the space between them, putting a hand on each of his shoulders. "I didn't care either way," she says. "None of those children were real."

"They were real to me," he says. "I nationalized private schools and criminalized homeschooling so every child would be forced into a curriculum Hydra could control. I ordered the Department of Education to rewrite all the textbooks and encourage children to spy on their parents! And I did it all to prevent an uprising. I was afraid of what those kids could do if they didn't despise the ideals their parents gave up." He squeezes his eyes shut, but the tears still leak out. "But that was supposed to be enough! She told me the reeducation camps would be for convicted subversives only, and I believed her!" He wipes his tears away, shaking his head. "Why did I believe her? Why did I believe any of it? She fell out of a window forty stories high, and I was so relieved that she survived that I didn't realize it was impossible!" He rubs at his temples, then bows his head. "I killed people, I enslaved others, and I ignored the basic laws of physics! How could I do that?"

"Because you were brainwashed, too," she says, resting her forehead on his crown. "Because she wiped your memory and rewrote your childhood. Because she scanned your brain and knew how to shape you into the man she needed you to be." She puts her hand on his chest, clutching at his shirt. "Because she thought your brain was more important than your heart. She used you, just like she used May and everyone."

"Yeah," he croaks, "but they all came 'round, saw that what we were doing was wrong and tried to stop it. Everyone but me."

"They all had a _chance_ ," she says. "You never did."

He shakes his head, forcing her to pull back. "No, I had chances. Daisy and Radcliffe told me the truth. _You_ told me the truth, and I shot you! But I just—it just made me so angry. Ophelia and my dad kept telling me that you were trying to destroy everything I built, and I didn't see that destroying it was the right thing to do."

"You had enemies telling you things that didn't make any sense," she clarifies. "May saw the truth for herself. Mack did, too. Coulson had memory fragments and still spouted your Hydra propaganda, even after I told him the truth. He turned me in! You're just as guilty as they are, Fitz. The only difference is that AIDA had a tighter hold on you. She framed everything you saw and experienced so you never had so much as the opportunity to betray her."

She tightens her grip on his shirt, only to have him pull her hand away.

"You shouldn't make excuses for me, Jemma," he says. "You shouldn't have anything to do with me at all."

Her heart sinks, even as her determination hardens. She made a promise to him once, a promise she intended to make permanent with vows and rings. Why does it always have to be so hard?

"We love each other, Fitz!" She clenches and unclenches her hands, wishing she could hold him. "We can't we just be in love?"

He shakes his head. "I killed all those people, Jemma," he says.

She remembers the Fitz from the Framework—determined, cold, and calculating. He did terrible things, but she understands why. What would she do to protect him? What had she already done?

"Yes," she agrees, nodding. "You did kill those people. And I killed your father."

He looks up at her with wide eyes. "But you didn't—I just _thought_ —he's still out there somewhere. The man you killed wasn't real."

"He's just as real as the children AIDA brainwashed, and every bit as real as the Inhumans you killed. It's all the same, Fitz. You can't hold yourself to a different standard than everybody else."

"I killed Agnes!"

He's shaking all over now, and it kills her not to comfort him. She invades his space again, this time with added caution. "I was there, Fitz. AIDA told you they were going to use Agnes to replace her. You had no way of knowing it was a lie."

"She was innocent," he says. "She didn't even know what was happening; I could see it in her eyes!"

"Yes," she says, "and I tried to kill Ward, even though I didn't need to. Even though he was on our side at the time. You were the one who told me not to do it, but I tried anyway, because I was angry at him for hurting you." She closes her eyes as the guilt comes back, seeping out of a hidden place in her heart. "I wasn't trying to protect you, Fitz. I only wanted revenge for the distance he put between us." Tears of her own drip down her cheeks, and she feels his hands on her shoulders, pulling her in. "Does that make me a bad person?" Her question falls on his chest as he wraps his arms around her. "Does it mean you shouldn't love me?" He answers by burying his face in her hair and letting his breathing sync up with hers. They stand there in a wonderful, painful silence as they connect through shared guilt, and she hopes that this will be enough, that she won't have to dig up any more of her own demons. She prays for it knowing she'll unearth them all if she has to.

Eventually, he unravels his embrace and slides his hand down her arm until his fingers tangle with hers. 

"Come on," he says, "let's find that LMD."

* * *

An LMD would come in handy right now, he thinks. He could program it to do his job, and then he could sneak through the halls and find this transporter for himself. Would they catch and kill him? Probably. That's why he should actually program the LMD to snoop through the halls while _he_  went to work, so he could sift through all the data later, whether or not the android lived. He doesn't have any resources at all, much less anything that could approach what he would need to build an LMD, but he has to think of something as he works, and his attempts at translating a foreign tongue has left him with a headache. What he'd really need is an LMD with Bobbi's brain, since she can read almost anything.

He is picking up a little bit, though. The scratches over the food lines mean "food." The scribblings over the entrance to the assembly line probably mean "factory" or something like it. But he's not a codebreaker, and asking questions means risking the loss of a tooth. Maybe he can look at it the way he does an equation: each marking is x; solve for x. If he had any idea how to formulate the rest of the equation, he'd be in business.

He lets himself take a break from his mental gymnastics and focuses on Jemma instead. She's been so happy to see him that he didn't the notice how tired and weak she looks. Do they feed her less than they feed him? Does she have to share her room with dangerous people? She said that she has trouble sleeping without him and by the way he wakes up each morning with his hand on his chest, expecting her to be in the crook of his arm, he has to say that it's hard for him, too. But is there something she's leaving out?

He's seen the types of fellow prisoners that are kept here, and if she doesn't have a private room like he has, he doesn't understand how she could ever sleep at all. He decides, right then and there, that he'll have to find a way to protect her.

"Green slop today," Jemma says when he meets up with her at mealtime. This time, the bag comes from under her shirt, and nothing leaks.

"I'll need this one back," she warns. "It's the best one I've found, and it holds a lot more." She nods towards the darkest corner of their secret nook. "Shall we sit down?"

The utensils, she explains, would have set off all kinds of alarms no matter where she'd concealed them, so they eat the goop by the handful, as messy as undignified as two space prisoners can be.

"Is this what they usually give you?" he asks. "I mean, it's different every day, but is it the same amount?"

She swallows a mouthful and nods, knowing look in her eyes. "They have to know it's not enough to sustain us," she says. "If they had multiple mealtimes or served something with a greater nutritional density, it could be. But my guess is that they don't care all that much about keeping us alive. As soon as we keel over, they can easily snatch up replacements."

"If we're already starving with the food they give us, then we'll starve twice as fast with half of it." 

"Yes," she says, "but I'd rather us die together than live apart, wouldn't you?"

He knows the question is loaded—she's asking for a reassurance that they both know he couldn't give in the past. He can't let her down again.

"Yes," he says as diplomatically as he can, "but we have to live long enough to find a way out of here."

"Speaking of which," she says, producing a folded piece of paper, "I went back to the transporter today. Here's everything that I remember." She unfolds the paper and hands it to him. "I'll be able to add more detail when I go back next week."

He looks over her diagram, his gears already turning. "Next week? You don't go to the same places every day?"

"No," she answers, "they have us rotate. I don't know if it's because they think it doesn't need to be cleaned all that often, or because they have enough cleaning crews that they can make sure no one person spends too much time in one room. Either way, I go there once a week, which on this space prison means once every five days. I guess it's lucky that their weeks are shorter than ours."

Fitz shrugs. "I never had a chance to notice. Every day is the same for me." He looks over the diagram one more time to ensure he's committed it to memory. "Does that mean you know your way around this place? I only see my room, the assembly line, and the cafeteria."

"They keep us contained to our sector of the ship," she says, "but I think I know it pretty well."

"Do you think you could find my room if I drew a map?"

He hears her suck in a breath as he flips the paper over, then swipes his finger along the dirty floor to have something to write with. The map is crude, but he hopes it gets the point across.

"How's this?" He holds up his handiwork to show her. "Does it make any sense?"

She takes the map from his hands and studies it closely before nodding. "I think so. But Fitz, why . . ."

"My room is pretty safe. I have it all to myself, and I don't think they do security sweeps; I've set traps for them. Put stray hairs on things. We could meet there instead; that way we could both eat." _And sleep_ , he silently adds, if she really means that she wants the relationship they used to have. He can't promise any more than that, not yet, but he can't stand the thought of Jemma out there, alone. "Only if you think it's safe, of course. No use dying before we figure this out."

It's not until the words fall from his lips that he realizes there's another meaning besides the one he intended, as the transporter is not the only problem they're trying to solve. He hopes she sees that he's standing on a limb and knows not to shake the tree.

"Are you sure?" Her eyes are wide open, more surprised than she was when he first asked her to dinner. "I know you have a lot that you're dealing with."

"It'll be harder to deal with it if neither of us can sleep," he says, and now it's all laid bare. "I don't . . . I _do_ have a lot to deal with, but I think I've made progress. I can't . . . I'm still not the man I was, but I . . . you shouldn't have to suffer if I can help it."

She smiles in a way he hasn't seen since before the Framework—with a glow in her eyes that warms him to his toes.

"You know I never want to be without you, Fitz." She looks down at his map and nods, and he's grateful she doesn't see the effects of her affection. "I think I've memorized their patrols. It should be safe." She folds up the map and slides it into her shirt. "I'll be there tonight, assuming I can get there safely. But don't worry if I don't make it; I'll be very careful. And if it doesn't work out, we'll just meet here tomorrow."

She smiles at him, and he tries to return it, but knows he falls short. Now, he's worried that he pushed them both too far, that she'll risk her neck to see him and he'll be too overwhelmed to do as he promised. But AIDA took over his life by putting itself in Jemma's place, and he won't really heal from the damage done until Jemma's back where she belongs. It's still hard for him to accept that she _wants_ that role, but he's gotten this far by trusting her judgment, and he figures there no going back now.

* * *

She pushed him too far, and it shows in the reticence with which he holds her hand. Is this what he felt like after the last time she was lost in space? If so, her heart breaks for him even more than it did at the time. She didn't spend nearly as much time looking for him as he did looking for her, and yet every cell in her body is screaming to be closer to him. She never should have touched him or tempted him to hold her, because he wasn't ready, and it only makes her miss him more. Maybe she should let go of his hand and quit him completely until he invites her back into his life, but she can't make herself create any sort of distance.

He lets go when they finally discover the LMD with her face, and she lets him, biting her lip as he looks over the android in concern.

"They never scanned my brain," she explains. "They tried, but I got away. So we should be able to program it however we like."

Fitz regards her carefully. "Yeah," he says, "assuming we can figure out how to program a quantum brain." He goes to work immediately, lifting up the back panel in the android's skull. "They tried, huh? The LMDs?"

"Yes," she says. "Well, yours specifically. Let's just say that I prefer the man you were in the Framework. He treated me a lot better."

His brow furrows. "I shot you."

"Your LMD stabbed me in the thigh, tried to steal my brain, then almost strangled me when I got away," she says with a shrug. "So it's all relative, really."

Fitz almost drops the panel door. "He . . . what?"

" _It_ , Fitz," she corrects. " _It_ lied and manipulated me, just like AIDA did to you. I almost believed it until it stabbed me. Let's hope this LMD can be just as convincing."

"I still don't . . ." Fitz shakes his head. "I'm sorry it happened, Jemma."

"Well," says Jemma, "Radcliffe was sorry, too, and that means more to me, since he was the one who did it." She waits for his eyes to reach her, then continues, "You're not responsible for how other people twisted your work. Or how they twisted you. But together, maybe we can use this for good, as it was originally intended. Can I take a look?"

He steps back to let her see, and she's not sure what she expected. It's exactly what  they saw with Radcliffe's LMD, and she has no idea what to do with it.

"I don't know if we can program this without the Darkhold," Fitz says in defeat, "and I don't want anyone to touch that book ever again."

Silently, Jemma agrees. There have been many times when she's wished she could have rescued Fitz from his trip to another dimension and prevented AIDA from reading the Darkhold, but what would have happened to her if she'd read it? Surely, the past few years have proved that she has a dark side, too. She's certainly not going to risk finding out now.

"Can we take out the quantum brain and replace it with something we _can_ program?"

She'll never tire from seeing the way a new idea can make Fitz's eyes light up.

* * *

He turned out all the lights before he creaked open the door to let her sneak into his room, but he finds that she has a glow all her own. A part of him feels like the teenager he never was, but another part of him feels much, much older. Jemma takes her map out of her pocket and hands it to him.

"It wasn't hard to find you," she says. "I think it'll be easy to find my way back. Do you want to brainstorm? We might as well make use of the time we have."

He nods and pretends not to see the way her eyes find the little cot he's used as a bed. He might be an idiot, offering to share that cot when they've shared so much more than that. Still, it's all he has, and she doesn't ask for more. She sits down when invited and launches right into an explanation of her notes, adding in more as his questions spark other ideas. This, at least, they can do as they always did. They can't go back to their linear friendship, but for now they pretend that they can, burying their heads in the problem so they can forget about themselves.  It's not until he yawns that he realizes they've been talking for over an hour, and somehow his hand landed on her shoulder when one of hers is on his knee. This is how they've always been when they've been caught up in the present; it's only when they were paralyzed by the future that their gravitational force is strained.

This time, it's a mixture of their future and his past.

So he tries not to worry about anything more than the fact that she's here with him, that she misses him as much as he misses her. He falls into the cot and lifts his arm to signal her to slide in next to him. She curls up next to him and somehow, he feels out of breath and like he's breathing for the first time.

"Is this this okay?" she asks, and the truth is that he's not sure. The truth is that he's afraid it'll remind him of the thing he thought was a person, but he's never experienced anything like this, not even with Jemma. It feels like he had a malfunctioning cybernetic arm, and now his own limb is starting to grow back.

It feels like a miracle.

"Jemma," he says, and he means to say more, but there are no words for this. His forehead finds her shoulder and her hand is in his hair, and it's just like when his dad left, except he's the one who's leaving. There's never been more distance between him and the man he was, now that he and Jemma are so close.

He's not sure if the tears are from loss or relief, but she takes his face in his hands all the same, guiding him to look at her while her thumbs wipe the tears away.

"Shhh, shhh," she soothes, "it's alright. We're alright, aren't we?"

She's been saying the man from the Framework was someone else, but now he feels it. The memories are still burned into his brain, but they do not belong to him. He was looking through someone else's eyes.

"Why," he asks, choking out the word, "why was I like that over there? How could I do those things?"

She looks at so deeply into his eyes that he's sure she sees right into his heart. He tries to be brave. "I think," she says, "I think you don't know how important you are. I think you ask for other people to tell you."

He takes a breath and lets her words sink in. He used to be the most powerful man in the world, and he thought he was loved by the most powerful person in the world. But he's honest enough to admit that he always had a yearning that burned like coals until it flared out and burned someone else. He had the whole world, Ophelia _was_ his world, and yet the yearning had always been there. He feels it now, smoldering, but still hot.

Always the knight, he thinks. Never the king.

"So," he says, "if I asked the wrong people . . ."

"We all have weaknesses, Fitz." She closes her hand to caress his face with the backs of his fingers, and his eyes shut so this can be the universe. "Every one of us. If we know what they are, we can fix them. Or protect ourselves, at least. Stop people from exploiting them."

He takes her hand and his and turns it so they're palm to palm, coaxing her fingers open so he can slide his between them. It's her left hand, he knows. She once said they were inevitable, and he's spent a year watching that hand.

"I've got the right person now," he says. He looks into her eyes and hopes he'll see them light up with love, but they only soften.

"I don't think it can come from me," she tells him. "I wish it could. I think it has to come from something greater than us. Greater than the world, maybe." She takes her free hand and placing it over his heart. "But maybe you can find it here."

He tries to hide his disappointment, but she knows him too well. The hand that was over his heart goes back to cradling his face.

"I love you," she says, "and AIDA _should_ have loved you. That was _its_ failing, not yours. You are so important that even a computer program should know to show reverence."

He lets go of her hand and opens the arms that ache to hold her, finding a relief that only comes when she's in his embrace. They'd been blind about so many things, but they'd known abut this, that the world was always safer when they found refuge in each other.

"You don't have any flaws," he whispers into her hair.

"I do," she says. He tries to say that it's impossible, but she cuts him off before he has the chance. "I've had a lot of time to think about it." He feels her exhale, shrinking in his arms. "Slaughtering Inhumans seems to lead to self-reflection."

_"Jemma."_

"It wasn't just that; it was other things, too. Things I did on that planet, that hurt you. I think . . ." She takes a breath in now, deep and shuddering. "Maybe I think I'm _too_ important. Maybe I think my survival is more important than _how_ I survive. I've looked for the wrong people, too, people I thought could save me. So lately, I've been trying to save everyone else." She shakes her head, and he knows the smile she's wearing. "And here we are. SHIELD's in shambles, we're in space, and most of you have a lifetime of shame you don't deserve. Clearly, I've still got room for improvement."

"Or you need help," he counters. "Or there's a middle ground—being part of a team that saves each other."

"I know," she breathes. She takes the hands he placed on her stomach and brings them to her lips. "I've got the right person, too."

* * *

"Are you sure you're the right person for this?"

Jemma frowns at him. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because," he says, "because the whole point of this is that she's trying to kill you."

"And, since she will think she has succeeded in killing me, she won't expect me to come at her with a machine gun. It's the perfect plan!"

Fitz glares at her. "Yes, until she transports behind you and fries your brain."

"Luckily," she counters, "I won't be acting alone. Once Coulson has the Rider in him, all I have to do is distract her long enough for Coulson to get close. Then I get the satisfaction of seeing the look in her eyes when she realizes you put one over on her. How's the programming coming?"

He puts down his tools and levels a challenging gaze at her. "It's almost done, but I really think you should just . . . go help Daisy, or something. I'm really worried about Mack."

She folds her arms, cocking her head at him. "I'm worried about him, too. And Yoyo. But they're going to be fine, Fitz."

"Yeah, well, they wouldn't even be in this mess if I hadn't—"

_"Fitz."_

She watches him squeeze his eyes shut and stops herself from placing her hands on his shoulders. How is she supposed to resist his gravitational pull? She's felt it long before they understood what they meant to each other, and it's not going away now. 

"Can you believe that this all started as a training program? And a digital assistant?" He throws up a hand in frustration, and Jemma dry washes her hands. "We should be able to just take Mack and Yoyo out of the Framework, but no, I created an android who _thinks_! Who _wants_ things, wants what _we_ had! That's what this is all about, Jemma. She told me herself."

Jemma takes a breath in and out, mentally replaying AIDA's words and wishing she could just wrap him up in her arms until his fire burns out. How is it that she can't get through to him?

"None of this would have happened if it hadn't been for me and for the way I feel about you," he says. "You shouldn't have anything to do with me."

She takes a step forward. "Fitz."

"You're not being objective," he says. "Anyone else would see this isn't good for you. So the moment this is over, I'll just . . . I'll go away so you'll never have to see me again." He bows his head rubbing his temples. "I'll go somewhere I can't hurt anyone."

"Fitz," she pleads, "we've talked about this. We made promises—we have plans!"

"Yeah, well right now we have a plan where I get to watch your decoy die. And that's if it all goes _well_. If it doesn't go well, it'll be the _real_ you. You're better off if you're far away from me, Jemma. I won't be able to live if you don't."

She reaches for him, but he steps out of the way.

"We'll finish this mission, and I'll go," he says.

* * *

"Fitz," she whispers in his ear, "I have to go."

He blinks, sleep still heavy in his eyes. "You have to—wha-?" He looks around for his clock and sees that it's only been a few hours. She starts to get up, but he reaches out to stop her. "No," he groans, "stay."

"I have to beat the morning patrols, and I don't have much time." She leans over to plant a kiss on his forehead. "I don't want to push my luck."

"But it's the middle of the night!"

"Morning patrols are early," she explains. He feels her hand cup his jaw and looks up to find her smiling down at him. "I knew it would be like this, but it was worth it. Best night's sleep I've had in weeks. I'll see you at lunch?"

She gets out of their cot, and he raises himself on his elbow to keep her in sight.

"Lunch? But I thought you'd just come back here tonight."

"And _I_ think we should do both."

He shakes his head, still groggy. "Jemma, you need to eat."

"I'd rather eat with you."

_"Jemma."_

"Shhhh." She leans forward to place a kiss on the crown of his head. "Go back to sleep, Fitz. I'll be fine. See you in a little bit."

And if she didn't know him so well, she wouldn't know just how to card her fingers through his hair so that he melted into goo. His eyelids grow heavy, and just as his head falls back on his pillow in surrender, he thinks he hears her say, "I love you."

He, of course, meets her as requested, and he insists on giving her a larger share of slop since he got more sleep. She tries to turn his offer away, but he is insistent enough to be rewarded by the sparkle of gratitude in her eyes.

It's like this for the next few days—he barely eats, she barely sleeps, but isn't that how love's supposed to be? They spend every second they can with each other, trying to figure out the transporter, or commiserating about work, or wondering what the others are up to. When Jemma reports that she saw Yoyo marching along with Daisy, Fitz doesn't want to think about the kinds of things the captain might need both of them for. Still, when he goes to sleep with Jemma by his side and wakes up with her in his arms, when he gets to see her smile as purple sludge spills out of the corners of her mouth, he almost forgets that they're trapped here. Somehow, he feels freer than he's been in a lifetime.

* * *

"You're free," Jemma says, staring at the ashes that used to be AIDA. "I can't believe it. You're free of it." This should be a cause for celebration, but when she looks over at Fitz, she only sees doom in his eyes. The realization hits her at once—this is the end of the mission. This is where he intends to say goodbye. 

And she probably should be sad, but after a long day of trying not to be killed by a psychopathic robot-turned-flesh, all she feels is anger. They're free of the danger AIDA posed, but the wounds in Fitz's heart won't heal easily. She wishes Andrew were here, she wishes Fitz would just _listen to her_ ; she wishes a lot of things. But she doesn't wish that they'll stay together, as she's already determined that nothing, not even Fitz's guilt, will come between them. If she has to stay here with him, she will. 

She finds, though, that she doesn't have to make the argument for him to stick with her—Daisy makes it for her. 

It feels appropriate, seeing how Daisy was the one he hurt the most, since she was once the one who hurt him the most. Jemma is not the only one who loves him, and if there is something she learned in the Framework, it's that she can't always save Fitz on her own. So she simply chimes in at the right time, lending her voice to the chorus of people who won't leave him behind. She gives him one word and says the rest with her eyes: _I love you, and you are worthy of my love. I choose you, and I’m not going anywhere._ It’s what she’s been saying all along, but this time, he looks back at her with a silent message of his own:

_Okay_.

When they leave the Playground, heading towards their unknown fate, she lags behind the others until she can keep pace with him. "Maybe I spoke too soon," she says. "It might take you a while to unravel all this, like Daisy said. But I want you to know," she tells him, letting her hand brush against his, "that I'm not giving up on us, despite what you think I should do. We're better together, Fitz, and I'll be right here whenever you're ready to see that."

He only looks up at her with sad eyes, but is she imagining it? Does she see a hint of a smile on his lips?

* * *

He can't help but smile as he sees her, grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her into the dark. She ends up so close to him that she has to put her hand on his chest for balance, and he doesn't mind at all.

"Fitz?"

She squints up at him like she thinks he has a secret, and he doesn't know how to tell her about the dream he had after she left, about the way he woke up and realized he was ready to have a future. So he keeps her close instead, finding as much strength in her as he always has.

"What color is it today?" he asks.

She looks down at where the food pouch is hidden under her shirt.

"Gray."

"I think that's my favorite one."

She raises an eyebrow at his smile, but she matches it all the same. Can she feel the electricity in the air? Does she know that the page has been turned?

She must, because she raises herself on her toes, and he bends down to meet her lips, more sure than ever that they—

"Fitz?"

He realizes that his name didn't come from Jemma's lips, and he panics, immediately pulling Jemma behind him. They hear a crash that makes them both jump, then the blaring sirens from the alarms. Red lights flash everywhere, but they are still safe in the shadows. For now, at least.

"Fitz," she says with a hand on his back. "Did security find out? Are they looking for us?"

He doesn't know, and the words stick in his throat. If they've reviewed a security tape . . . if someone saw something and squealed . . .

If they've been caught, they're done for.

He's trying to think of a way to escape and something to say to Jemma if it's over.

"Simmons?"

Jemma moves her hand to his shoulder. "It's Mack."

"Fitz?"

He quickly realizes this call doesn't come in Mack's booming voice—it's Daisy's.

"Simmons?"

He turns to look at Jemma, seeing that she agrees. They inch out of their hiding spot, carefully making their way to the corridor as red lights flash on them. If it's some kind of trick, they'll be caught for sure, but if not—

"Fitz?"

Coulson.

"Simmons?"

Yoyo.

"Are you sure they're here?"

May.

"I've seen them a hundred times. I swear they're both in this sector."

Daisy.

"Fitz?"

Mack.

They step into the main corridor, still squinting in the flashing lights, and it's Mack who groans in relief.

"Finally," he says, rushing towards them. He stands behind Fitz and Jemma and all but herds them towards the rest of the group.

"You're okay," Daisy sighs, grabbing Fitz's hand, then Jemma's. "We were so worried!"

Fitz looks at Jemma and finds her looking back at him.

"What's going on?"

"Why are you here?"

Yoyo's mouth draws into a snarl. "They wanted Daisy and I to fight each other like animals. We had to get out."

Coulson steps forward, always the calm in the storm. "We didn't exactly have a chance to make an escape plan, but now that we're together, we should probably work on that."

"We know how to get out," Jemma offers, turning to Fitz, "don't we?"

Fitz can only shrug when there's another crash somewhere down the corridor, and it's clear that there's no time. Jemma tells them to follow her and they do, down the hall and around the corner, past cowering workers who glare with orange eyes, taking a left, a right, and a right until they spill unto a room with the thing that's supposed to save them all.

Seeing it for the first time, Fitz can only think that it's beautiful.

"Okay," says Coulson, "what do we do now?"

Fitz stares at the transporter until he hears Jemma call his name.

"Right. Well, as far as we can tell, you all need to stand . . . there." He turns to Jemma while the rest of the team walks over to where he's pointing.

"Do you think we can?" he whispers. "Ideally we'd want a test subj—"

"We don't have time. But do you think we could—"

"—a live demonstration, at least—"

"—or maybe Yoyo could grab one? But then, I—"

"—how would we even measure the res—"

"—and you're right, it might be pointless, but—"

"I'll just have to go through on my own."

Jemma stops mid-sentence, blinking at him. _"What?"_

"There's no way to know it's safe and no time to find a guinea pig," he explains, putting a hand on her arm. "Someone has to go through first. I might as well."

Jemma narrows her gaze at him. "And if I told you that _I_ should be the one who goes, because _you_ need to operate it? What would you say then?"

"Jemma."

"Fitz," says Coulson. Fitz and Jemma turn their heads to him and stare. "It's like Daisy says—we're all in this together."

Coulson glances over at Daisy, and Daisy nods. "We all know they'll kill us if we stay." She looks up at the towering machine and shrugs. "Might as well go out fighting."

There's a murmur of agreement among the team as one by one, each of them gives him a sign of their approval. Jemma smiles at him, a ray of sunshine in the darkest of moments.

"We figured this out together, Fitz," she says.

Together. They'd spent hours discussing everything in detail, deciphering symbols and solving complex equations, and she'd been with him every step of the way. 

"Okay," he says, addressing the team. "I think we can make this work."

* * *

"I think I can make that work," assures the waitress. "We don't technically have Eggs Benedict on the menu, and the chef gets cranky when I ask him to make Hollandaise sauce from scratch." She throws them a mischievous smile. "But it looks like you've had quite a day."

Jemma almost laughs, but manages to smile instead. "You wouldn't believe it."

"I'm sure that I wouldn't," the waitress, Sarah, agrees. "And I'll let you keep your secret if you keep mine. We can't let the regulars know that I make exceptions."

Jemma shakes her head. "We wouldn't let that happen."

Sarah stands there for a second, looking over her and Fitz with a knowing expression. "Alright. Eggs Benedict for Danny Boy, and a spinach omelet for the lady. Anything else?"

"Tea, please," says Jemma. "For both of us."

Sarah jots their order down and assures them the tea will be right out.  Fitz, who hasn't spoken a word since they walked into the diner, only breaks his silence when Sarah disappears into the kitchen.

"You didn't have to do that," he says. "I would have found something else."

She smiles back at him. "If this is our last meal, then you should have your favorite," she says. "It's only right."

Fitz looks down at the counter, and this time he doesn't frown. "You're my favorite."

"Well then," she says, "seems to me like you want for nothing."

She meets his gaze when he looks up at her, daring him to ignore the love in her eyes. 

"I'm sorry," he says, and his eyes go down to the floor. "I didn't think . . ."

"That they loved you, too?" She looks over at them—Mack and Yoyo, Coulson and May. Daisy. "I told you, Fitz. Everyone should love you. We'd be fools to let you go."

He narrows his gaze at her. "You really mean it."

"Of course I mean it," she says. "They all mean it, too. You don't have to carry this burden anymore, Fitz. I just wish you could believe it."

"Maybe," he says, readjusting in his seat, "maybe, I could try."

She smiles at him, a wide, genuine smile for the man she loves more than anything. It'll take time for him to get through this, but she hopes they've both learned their lessons about leaving. 

She turns away from him when Daisy asks her a question and Coulson wants to tell them all a story, but she's mindful of him at all times. He sits there and stares at his hands, he leans forward to hear the punchlines, and right when she least expects it, he slides his hand into hers.

She looks over at him, and he doesn't look back, but there's a smile on his lips and his fingers twine with hers, and she can't help but smile back.

* * *

He looks down at their twined hands and can only guess as to why she's smiling.

"Ready?"

He nods at her. "Ready."

Together, they slam a button on the control panel and run, diving into the group just as a white light envelops them all. He feels like every cell in his body is on fire, like he's being turned inside out and upside down, and the only thing he has to hold onto is her.

They slide through a tunnel made of photons and time, and when they come out the other side, he's surprised that he doesn't fall over.

Though he may have gone blind.

"Where are we?" Yoyo yells, and Fitz tries to cover his ears and ends up slamming Jemma's hand into his head. His brain is already trying to beat its way out of his skull, so it doesn't help. He groans and sits down on the ground, and Jemma to falls into his lap just as the world turns from black to gray. When he dares to open his eyes, the first thing he sees is her smile.

"We did it."

He looks around at this brave, new world: tall trees, blue sky, and off into the distance, an empty Coca-Cola can.

"We did," he says. "You were right about us."

He can hear the team shuffle about, and he doesn't care. He may have nothing but the clothes on his back and her, but that makes him a very rich man.

"Are you surprised?" 

She's being cheeky, so he punishes her by leaning down into her outstretched hands, letting her hold his face and she guides his lips to hers. He kisses her like a man should kiss the woman who saved him, fierce and soft and sweet. She smiles as she kisses him back, sliding a hand to the nape of his neck, keeping him close as if he would ever break away. They're both smiling when the kiss ends.

"Well," Coulson says, standing a little ways off, "this looks like North America to me."

"Good," says May. "We can work with that."

"But where can we go?" asks Daisy. "Even if we know where we are, Talbot and everyone else will be after us."

Coulson only smirks. "Do you think I would have told them about our secret base if I didn't have _another_ secret base? Please."

Fitz and Jemma exchange a look, and Coulson shrugs. While the rest of the team tries to figure out where they are, Jemma uses Fitz as leverage to push herself up, but wobbles over.

"Fitz! I forgot!"

She pulls up the hem of her shirt and takes out the bag of gray sludge, still intact. She chuckles in spite of herself and hands it to him.

"Here. Let's share one last meal together."

"I hope it's not the last," he teases, and she elbows him.

"You know what I mean," she says. "The last of _their_ meals. We'll get it over with so we can eat some actual food with an obscene caloric content."

He should smile at this, or make some kind of joke, but instead he only looks down at this last vestige of their time together, of her decision to risk dying with him to avoid living without him. Now that they'll get the best of both worlds, he doesn't know what to say.

But they split the slop like they always do, and he knows that eyes dart towards them when they laugh, but he doesn't care. He's lighter than he's ever been, free of the weights AIDA put around his ankles, filled with the light that comes from Jemma's smile. She puts her hand in his, and somehow, he's never felt more important than he's felt in the whole of his life.

And that, he thinks, is a pretty good start.

**Author's Note:**

> A big thanks to [recoveringrabbit](http://archiveofourown.org/users/recoveringrabbit/pseuds/recoveringrabbit) for the beta and encouragement!
> 
> I regularly post sneak peeks and general ramblings about my writing on [my tumblr](http://agent-85.tumblr.com/tagged/Writings%20of%20Agent%2085).


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